Critical Realism Reading Seminars UCL Institute of Education Gary Hawke

Bhaskar, R. And Collier, A. 1998 Introduction: explanatory critiques, in Archer et al. (eds) 1998, pp. 385-394.

Alderson, P. 2013 Childhoods Real and Imagined. Routledge, pp. 57-62.

They were dualisms between positivism and hermeneutics; between collectivism and individualism; structure and agency; reason and cause; mind and body; fact and value.

There is a dialectical interrelation

between facts and values, in which we

are never situated in a value free

context. Values always impregnate and

imbue our social praxis and our factual

discourse, but at the same time, facts

themselves do generate evaluative

conclusions.

IT is often said that one cannot derive an "ought" from an "is." This thesis, which comes from a famous passage in Hume's Treatise, while not as clear as it might be, is at least clear in broad outline: there is a class of statements of fact which is logically distinct from a class of statements of value. No set of statements of fact by themselves entails any statement of value.

Bhaskar, R. And Collier, A. 1998 Introduction: explanatory critiques, in Archer et al. (eds) 1998, pp. 385-394.

“The starting point is that a social science can study both ideas, and what those ideas are about.”

“…other things being equal. It is better that a would-be murderer should have false beliefs about his victim’s whereabouts.” Collier, A. 1998 Explanation and Emancipation, in Archer et al. (eds) 1998, pp. 448.

“Further still, particular institutions and false beliefs about them may be in a functional relation, such that the false be l ie fs serve to preserve the institutions that they are about. Where institutions oppress a substantial number of people, they will only be stable if protected by such false beliefs. In such cases, to propound the truth is not just to criticize, but to undermine the institution.”

Collier, A. 1998 Explanation and Emancipation, in Archer et al. (eds) 1998, pp. 446.

Unconsciously

Semi Consciously

Consciously

InterferenceBhaskar, R. 1998 Societies, in Archer et a l . ( e d s ) C r i t i c a l Realism: Essential Readings 1998, pp 235.

exp lanatory c r i t ique (EC) . CRITIQUE of a phenomenon that follows from diagnosing that it is part of the explanation of why a false belief is held (cognitive EC), or why some social or personal ill persists…

explanatory critical theory : Dictionary of Critical Realism

The resulting critical naturalism, which is grounded in the scientific realism advanced in chapter 1, permits a situation of conflicting schools in con tempora ry soc ia l though t ; a generalised critique of fundamentalist ‘First Philosophy’; a reevaluation of the problem of the value and a reappraisal of the character of historical rationality. But my main concern is to relate this perspective to the organising theme of this inquiry: the nature of, and prospects for, human emancipation. Bhaskar, R. (2009. pp 69)

Bhaskar, R. (2009). Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation. London: Routledge

Realism and Social Science

(I) identifying problems – unmet needs, suffering, false beliefs;

(II) identifying the source or cause of those unmet needs, false beliefs, etc., such as a particular form of domination;

(III) passing to a negative judgement of those sources of illusion and oppression;

(IV) favouring (ceteris paribus) actions which remove those sources.

Sayer A (2000, pp159) - Realism and Social Science SAGE Publications Ltd

Bhaskar and critical realism argued that social science and natural science are underpinned by an ontology of natural necessity, which operates in both. He defined natural necessity as ‘a necessity in nature quite independent of human beings and their activity’ (Bhaskar: The Possibility of Naturalism, 1998 pp10).” Haji-Abdi A pp14

Critical realism presupposes that ontology is structured, differentiated and changing. This also involves a switch from events to mechanisms that generate events. In other words, it puts the emphasis on what produces events not the events themselves. To explain the role of mechanisms, events and experiences, critical realism posits three ontological domains: the real, the actual and the empirical. The empirical domain relates to our direct or indirect experience. The actual includes the events happening independently of our experience. The real domain identifies the underlying mechanisms that generate events that we experience. Haji-Abdi A pp14

At the empirical level are the identified experiences and sensed perceptions of knowing subjects, who test and validate data in replicable experiments that have predictable resul ts. Empir ical research may be inductive or deductive and involves forming generalisations or hypotheses related to many observations of constant conjunctions/repeated patterns.”

The actual level involves the actual objects and events that occur: many falling objects; subtle genetic changes in birds or peas over generations. Deduction at the actual level explains how, rather than why, objects fall or change, and it stands only as long as there are no exceptions. The hypothesis that all swans are white lasts until a black swan is observed, or that all emeralds are green lasts until a blue emerald is found.

The real level attends to Levels 1 and 2 and to deeper, unseen structures and mechanisms. These generate causes and effects, and make them available to experience. The causes are established, or justified, by their explanatory power. Examples include gravity, or analysis of the emerald's molecular structure and its refraction of light. The analysis demonstrates that, by definition, emeralds must be green; a blue emerald would not be an emerald.”

Almost all the phenomena of the world occur in open systems. […] A characteristic pattern for the analysis of explanation of such phenomena was developed in basic critical realism. This involves ‘the RRREIC schema’, where the first R or R1 stands for the resolution of the complex event or phenomenon into its components; the second R or R2 for the redescription of these components in an (ideally, optimally) explanatory significant way; the third R or R3 for the retrodiction of these component causes to antecedently existing events or states of affairs; E for the elimination of alternative competing explanatory antecedents; I for the identification of the causally efficacious or generative antecedents; and C for the iterative correction of earlier findings in the light of an (albeit temporarily) completed explanation or analysis. (Bhaskar et al p 3 2010)!

Bhaskar R, Frank C, Høyer G K, Næss P, and Parker J. (2010). Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change: Routledge

All the evidence we have for all emeralds are green is equally evidence for the statement that all emeralds are grue, when grue means green up to midnight tonight and blue thereafter. In fact, there is no resolution to the problem of deduction within the existing actualist problem field within a problem field that reduces knowledge and the world to one level.

A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Realism By Professor Roy Bhaskar Based on “An Introduction to Critical Realism”, a virtual classroom course hosted by Gary Hawke and led by Professor Roy Bhaskar at the Institute of Education – May to July 2014

So if you take the statement: all emeralds are green, one of our recent philosophers of science, Nelson Goodman, pointed out that this statement could be true up to midnight tonight, and after midnight tonight all emeralds could suddenly become blue.

Final Word From Roy

What a critical realist scientist, or what a critical realist philosopher, would do is to follow what a real scientist does, and after a real scientist arrives at what looks like a meaningful regularity in, say, the laboratory, the critical realist scientist tries to fathom out why it is that these two predicates - being green and being an emerald - are conjoined. What is it about emeralds that make them green? That is what the scientist asks and the scientist goes on to investigate the nature, the intrinsic qualities of emeralds, in virtue of which they do manifest the property of being green. In other words, the real scientist follows critical realism in moving towards the identification of a structure or a mechanism, which will explain the actual regularity that is observed.

Final Word From Roy

A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Realism By Professor Roy Bhaskar Based on “An Introduction to Critical Realism”, a virtual classroom course hosted by Gary Hawke and led by Professor Roy Bhaskar at the Institute of Education – May to July 2014

Critical Realism Reading Seminars UCL Institute of Education Gary Hawke